


That's Why You Remember The Name

by Halberdier



Category: Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Intermission, Minor Violence, Non-Graphic Depiction of Blood, eclipse zine, just a general good ol problem sleuth fun time, just a little profanity but not as much as I would like, references to the midnight crew, the comic is a comedy so this is too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-23 05:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23106502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halberdier/pseuds/Halberdier
Summary: Problem Sleuth is a distinguished fellow with an easily distinguishable name. Let him tell you in his own words why he's the best in the business, and let's all hope he doesn't get interrupted by mobsters and detectives.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	That's Why You Remember The Name

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was originally written for [Eclipse]: A Fanzine dedicated to Problem Sleuth, The Midnight Crew and The Felt. You can download the zine for free, and find the link @eclipsezine on twitter or @eclipse-zine on tumblr. I highly recommend it! But feel free to read this here where you can kudos 'n comment if you feel inclined!

Some folks are born to be good. Some folks are born to be bad. Some folks are born to be wild.

Me?

I was born to sleuth problems.

It's right there in the name, see. Only the best professionals are named after their job. That's why when I need a dentist, I go to Tooth Pullman. Or when I need a doctor, I go to Obi G. Wyen. So when you need an issue investigated, a situation scrutinized or a conundrum considered, you sure don't wanna call Elle Ectrician. You wanna call the best in the business.

You wanna call Problem Sleuth.

I'm a private eye, as you damn well guessed, and you might even say I am considered one of the top oblique observers in the city. I am also, of course, cited as one of the sexiest men in the area code, am frequently referred to as one of the most eligible bachelors in the state congressional district, and am the recipient of four consecutive nominations for Discreet Detective Digest's Hardboiled Hunk of the Year Award. A reputation like that doesn't just pop up overnight. It gets developed through a lifetime of gumption, chutzpah, elbow grease and elf tears. There's a reason that solicitations for my assistance number significantly higher than some other, less pulchritudinous providers. I don't just give promises. I guarantee results.

A ring of the phone sets the needle down properly on the swing record of the night. I straighten my tie instinctively in order to loosen it appropriately, and I pick up the call for help.

P. Sleuth and Associates, I answer every time, and I add a little note that it is P. Sleuth himself speaking.

A voice responds. It's a voice I've never heard, not to my knowledge, and yet there is something there that seems tremendously, uncannily familiar. There's a tremor in the voice as they ask me, nearly breathless, if my refrigerator is running.

I tell them that's a tough question. Being as the setting has always played it fast and loose with the timeline, I can't say for sure if the refrigerator has been invented yet.

They tell me I'd better go catch it.

Well that's just the thing, ain't it? I put my feet up on the desk and tell them I'd love to catch it for them, I really would, but I can't just work with no clues to start from, can I? And I especially can't work for free. A fella has bills to pay and expensive gifts to buy for whoever he chooses to romance this week, and while charity work fills the soul, it doesn't fill the belly or the bed. So let's talk prices first, I tell them, and follow that up with everything we know about -- what was it again, toots? Ah yes -- my refrigerator.

Silence passes for some time between us, followed by what almost sounds like a sigh of disappointment and a click.

Typical cheapskate, hoping to take advantage of a good man's services for free. Well, I learned pretty quickly in this business not to freely service every Tom, Dick and Harry that walks in here, no sir.

Gotta pay to get serviced.

It's a living, as they say, and you gotta make a living. And I make my living on the edge of danger, lurking on the fringes of society, trimming off the split ends of inhumanity and protecting the roots of mankind. Yes sir, if crime is the mullet of the city, I'm the barber who's going to do whatever it takes to shape this town into something actually presentable.

It's a tough life out in this town. This city was built from the ground up by mob money and corruption, and any sane man would take a look at his odds of making a difference and go back to quietly resuming a more reasonable profession. Like a garbage man. Or a sandwich artist. But as the old film says, I know right and I know wrong. And when you've been raised to know which is which, well, it's not something that ever leaves your mind.

Not to dwell on my childhood. It doesn't matter how I got here. What matters is that I am here. And I am not gonna just roll over at the first sign of an enforcer beating down my door to stick a gun in my face.

Coincidentally, as we speak, an enforcer has just beaten down my door and stuck a gun in my face.

But that's fine. I've been in worse scrapes than this. Hell, I've died at least a couple times when last I counted. You have to get up pretty early in the-- okay, he just poked me in the nose with it. I'd better say something.

I don't recall scheduling an appointment for this evening, I say to him.

Spades Slick don't need no appointment, he says to me.

I look him up and down. Cheap suit, clip on tie, and a hat only one or two steps classier than cardboard. You don't look like Spades Slick to me, I say to him.

Yeah, but Spades Slick sent me, he says to me.

And in that goonie getup, you don't look like Diamonds Droog, I say to him.

Yeah, that's right, I ain't Diamonds Droog, he says to me.

And studying your stature, you couldn't possibly be either Clubs Deuce or Hearts Boxcars, I say to him.

Yeah, I know, I ain't those cats neither, he says to me.

So…

I'm a new guy, he says.

New guy, I say.

New guy, he says.

His gun keeps brushing up against my nostril in a way that I feel he ought to know has got to be considered awfully impertinent in most cultures.

Well then, new guy, I say to him, how do you plan to shoot me with that… bus station locker key?

He makes a sound and turns the gun around to check and see if it really had turned into a bus station locker key, and in that moment I strike. A punch to his wrist, a knee to his bits, and in less than a few slick and cinematically pleasing moves, I've got him doubled over and in a headlock with his gun to his own chin.

I shoulda known you was tryin' to play me, he says. This thing only unlocks suitcases.

Oldest trick in the book, I tell him, and yet goons like you keep falling for it. Now tell me why you're here before I use it to unlock your wisdom teeth.

I told ya, he groans out, Spades Slick sent me.

Yeah, but what you haven't told me, I say to him, and what you should have inferred from context clues that I was actually asking, is why Spades Slick sent you?

I don't know, he says.

Not good enough, I say, and I bring my chokehold in significantly tighter.

No, no! he chokes out, I mean I don't know beyond what I told you!

How do you figure, I ask him.

Easy! Spades Slick, he says to me, he says, 'Go give Problem Sleuth my regards,' and then just sorta sends me on my way. So I figure he wants me to paint your office in blood instead of… instead of…

Instead of what? I ask with a rather pointed jab of the gun.

Is that a mural? he asks, trying to nod his head at the masterpiece that covers my wall.

So what if it is? I ask.

Well, nothing, he says, gasping for air, it's just really nice.

You think so? I ask him.

Yeah, he says, struggling against my grip, it really conveys a sense of peaceful diversity that this city could really benefit from.

That's what I was going for when I commissioned it, I tell him, digging my knee into his pelvis.

Can you put me in touch with the painter? he asks while trying to use his free hand to beat futilely at my grip. The neighborhood where I grew up could do with a little more culture and hope.

Not likely, I say, keeping the gun held firm as he tries to wrest it away from me, I lost their contact information when their brothel got sucked into a black hole.

When their what did what? he asks, clawing at my chokin' arm.

Don't worry about it, I say, it's old news, and I drag his sorry ass over to the opposite corner of my office. You just tell Slick that his message was received when you get back.

Oh, so I can go? he asks, wheezing from exertion as he tries to beat his elbow into my side.

You sure can, I say, and I throw open the window and shove him out of it.

A satisfying aaaaaiiiiieeeeeee!!! follows him out the window, and shortly after that comes an even more satisfying spwack. Any good ass-thrashing should be accompanied by unique and evocative onomatopoeia, and the ones my poundings produce on the regular could give the Sunday Funnies a six-issue run for their money. I shut the window, straighten my tie, and strike a hardboiled pose in my chair with my feet on my desk.

But that's just the way things go when you're one of the greatest gumshoes to ever grace the good guy gang. Sometimes something so simple as an early evening monologue can be interrupted by some big palooka tryin' to peeve your posterior with nothin but applesauce in his-- Aw hell, he's throwing rocks at the window.

I open it up. Leave it alone, chief, I call down to him. The jig is up, the jugs are out, and you're the milkmaid.

I know, I know, he yells up through the window, I just gotta know where the hell I am!

What do you mean? I shout back. You're outside!

But this ain't no outside ive ever seen, he keeps yelling. It's got all these weird motionless stick figure people and this weird ugly dog. And I think there's something down the street that looks like your skeleton and I really ain't got it in me to think about why I somehow know it's yours.

Oh, right, I holler pensively, I forgot for a moment that it's only outside in the imaginary world.

He shouts up to me. The imaginary world?

Yeah, I shout back to him. The imaginary world.

Well, he says to himself, taking a moment to reflect on his situation and how I could have heard him talking to himself before yelling back up again, how the hell do I get back to the real world?

Well first you gotta get to the fire escape, I tell him. You'll see it on the side of the brick building next to mine that's a story or two shorter. You climb the ladder to the roof and take the stairs to-- hold on, youll probably need to write this down. You got a pen?

Yeah, he shouts, digging through his pockets, but I ain't got nothin' to write on!

Hold tight, I tell him, and I rifle around in my desk drawer for a note card. Take this, I call out, and I let the card fly. It flutters through the air like a monarch butterfly above the Gulf of Mexico, or like a sea shanty floating in a late Havana evening breeze.

He catches it as it gets close and looks at it before telling me what I already know. This is just a wallet-sized photograph of you shirtless, he says.

Well obviously, I call back down. But if you flip it over, the back is blank and you can write on it.

He shakes his head. But wont you want it back? he asks me

Are you kiddin me? I laugh a good, hearty, derisive laugh in his face, except across the street and five stories up. I'll be fine without it. I've got hundreds.

He shrugs and flips the photo over.

You ready? I ask him.

Holy shit, he says, just fucking start already.

Well gee, I call down there, that's awfully strong language for someone who's technically imaginary.

Oh my god, he says, do you love anything as much as you love the sound of your own voice?

I snort and scoff at him. Yeah, I say, I also love how quickly I was able to kick your ass.

No wonder Slick wants you dead, he shouts up.

If Slick wanted me dead, I call down, he'd do it his own damn self. Now write this down, I say, and I tell him the instructions.

They're pretty simple instructions, of course. Just find the fire escape, take the ladder up to the roof, take the stairs up to the window, and that'll take you to the office of one Ace Dick, my friendly rival and sometimes-associate. That's the simple answer, of course, since as long as he opens the window, you'd get back to the real world just one door down from mine. But that relies on him letting you in, and he has a hard time imagining he'd let anyone in.

He sounds like a real dick, he yells up at me.

Well he sure isn't an imaginary one, I tell him. It's right there in the name. If he doesn't let you in, which he probably won't, you gotta stand up on the stairway railing and use that to climb up to the roof on top of his imaginary office. Up there, you'll find a three by three square of cinderblocks. On the lower right hand corner, you'll notice that one of the cinderblocks is about a centimeter-to-half-an-inch shorter than the other ones. The goal here is to get that cinderblock into the center of all the cinderblocks, but you can only move one cinderblock at a time -- and only the length of a single cinderblock. 

A slider puzzle? he asks loudly. I hate those!

Nah, this one's not so bad, I shout back. It's more that it's just tedious, since the solution is relatively simple, and once you've gotten that in place, a ladder will appear. Normally, you'd use that to get onto Pickle Inspector's roof, but his skylight hasn't been fixed yet, so you'll have to use that as a bridge between Ace's building and the building across the street. Now, once you're on the other side, you'll need to dodge the hammers that keep popping out of the emergency exit on the roof of the hardware store.

The what? he asks, but I ignore him.

Continuing on, I tell him that while you do that, you have to make your way three buildings down until you're on the roof of the local cinema. Now, the cinema's marquee will be showing the wrong movies, and you'll have five minutes to rearrange the letters on the sign to be the right movies. This wasn't supposed to be a timed mission, but something about the way the memory is programmed accidentally makes it randomize to a new scramble and a new solution every five minutes. 

What in the goddamn? he asks me.

I know, I know, I tell him. This one's actually a real pain in the ass. It's a new addition for in case we get locked in our hallway again and we haven't worked all the bugs out yet.

You got locked in your hallway? he shouts up at me.

Do you wanna get back to the real world or not? I shoot back.

All right, all right, he grumbles. Fine. Continue.

Thank you, I say. I will. So, once you've got that done, the owner of the cinema will open the door to thank you. Don't bother trying to talk to him -- he's also on a pre-programmed loop -- but if you get in the door, the main theater has a movie showing on repeat. From the main theater, if you can go to the back and enter the projectionist's booth. In there are two windows: one that the projector is showing through, and one that you can use to get into the bottom floor men's bathroom in my building, and then you'll be safe and sound in the real world.

Where do I go from there? he shouts up.

I trust that you can find your way to the exit from there, I shout down, and you can go home and tell Spades Slick that his plan has been an arousing success.

Don't you mean rousing? he asks.

No, I say, and I shut the window in his face. Or at least as in-his-face as it can be from this distance. If he keeps wanting to be a pain, of course, he can say it to the pane. And if that pun isn't too undignified for a 2010 hit single from legendarily violent rapper Eminem, it isn't too undignified for me.

But I digress.

Interruptions are part and parcel for a guy like me. You can't expect everything to go off without a hitch. Sometimes you think a case is straightforward right up until you figure out that your client was the murderer the whole time. Or sometimes your neighbor calls for an order of midnight harlotry and you end up with a giant stone bust of an actor parked outside your office door. These things happen. But a true sleuth rolls with the changes. Being stodgy and fixed is how you end up like… well…

Like the guy who ordered said strumpets all that time ago and yet is currently knocking on my door.

Amazing.

I open up the door, which I have smartly re-hung to open inward in the event that all this idiocy repeats itself.

What is it, Ace, I ask with a sigh.

The portly pugilist that calls himself Ace Dick stands framed in the lower half of my doorway.

He opens his magnificent maw to mumble out his complaint of the day. Did you know anything about the Midnight Crew having a new guy?

I laugh. Yeah, Ace, I already found out about him.

What's he doing here? he asks me.

Beats me, I say to him. I think this is the Crew's way of hazing him.

Lazy bastids, he says with a pseudo sage nod. They oughta haze him them own damn selves.

So you let him in? I ask him.

What? No, he says. Told me his story, but I'm not about to let some moron from the mob climb into my office. No sir. He wouldn't stop pounding on the window either, so I just unplugged it.

You… I stare at him for a moment. You just unplugged the window?

Yeah, he says. That way I wouldn't have to hear him anymore.

Yeah, maybe, I say, but Ace -- you remember what happens to someone on the other side of an unpowered window, right?

Ace is quiet for a bit.

You don't remember, I say, do you.

No, no, I remember, he says. But you can remind me and that'd be fine, I guess.

Well in your window's case, I tell him, the darkness on his side is going to summon the Wrath of the Dark Saint Olfalculus and his Bold Flagellum of Heresy,

Right, right, Ace says. Santa Claus and his bowl full of jelly. I remember now.

Yeah, and that's bad, I say to him.

Probably, he says.

We pass some quiet moments in mutual stupidity for a moment before I get fed up.

So don't you think you oughta go back and plug it back in? I ask him.

Why? he asks me.

So he doesn't die? I ask him.

...Why? he asks me.

Oh for the sake of everything that has ever happened in infinite paradox space, I say. I'll do it myself.

I storm out of my room and barge into Ace's, not bothering to notice if he's following me or not. It's a little tricky in the dark, and I trip over a few things that I'm sure were part of a long-abandoned broken-phone puzzle that he scattered over the floor in frustration. Finally I make it to the darkened window. I plug it in, and in an act of unfathomable generosity, I open the window and yank the bloodied mobster back into reality.

What the hell was that? he screams between ragged breaths.

Well, at least you're conscious, I tell him.

No, seriously, he keeps screaming, what the actual fuck was that?

Occupational hazard, I tell him with a shrug.

Occupational…. what?? He shakes his head and struggles to his feet. No, no, he says, dusting his suit off and trembling. No, fuck this. Fuck all of this. Fuck mobsters and detectives.

I mean, who wouldn't? I tell him.

No, fuck you especially, he says. I'm going to take my mother's advice and become a priest. I'm outta here, he says, and sure enough, he scrambles out the door, down the hallway, down the stairs, and presumably out of the office building and out of crime forever.

You see that, Ace? I say, assuming correctly that Ace did finally catch up.

What'd you do? he asks in disbelief.

I turn around and smile my patented, trademarked cocksure grin at him. I turned another soul from crime and sent him down the straight and narrow path.

What? he asks.

I couldn't've done it without you, I add with a pat on his shoulder, and I start walking out of the room.

Hey wait! he yells back. New guy bled all over the place here!

Eh, I say, not bothering to look back, not so bad that he can't get to a hospital in time.

Naw, he says, I mean who's gonna clean this up?

Wordlessly, I toss him a business card for one of my favorite cleaning services: The Goodfella Showroom. They'll mop, steam, and vacuum anything you need them to, and they don't stop until you're fully, visibly, and deeply satisfied. It's the classiest of custodial conveniences, and all you gotta do is dial them up at 1-800-WET-SUCK.

No sooner do I get back to my office than the phone rings again. I straighten my tie and my hat and put on my most stoic expression -- people don't come to me for a half-assed experience, even over the phone.

I pick it up. I say a few words, they say a few back… well, I'm sure I don't need to bore you with the details. I've already taken up enough of your time tonight, and by now, I know you've already figured out how these things tend to go. Someone's got an issue. Or maybe a dilemma. But they've called the right fella with the right name, because either way, they need someone to search for a solution.

In other words, you might say, they've got themselves a Problem.


End file.
